OK, now that I have waded thru nearly 3000 photo's here is an attempt at a report for my quick little trip to Middleton.
It all started on a very pleasant Tuesday afternoon in Perth. I finished packing and got bored, so I left for the local servo to fill up and get my start receipt which was timestamped at 12:11. I left the servo feeling real good and looking forward to the challenge that lay ahead ( and what a challenge it ended up being! ). Not even 10k into the trip and I am sitting at a set of traffic lights and the bike just stops! After a few attempts it restarted and all seemed well again. At this stage I only had the GPS and music going, the C.B. Camera and cruise control would not even fire up! I took the short way to Bunbury for a quick splash and dash for fuel and corner docket and carried on to Walpole for my next corner docket. This stretch of the run is where I got the Camera to start working and my video starts at the first of the roadworks. After a good, but very slow, ride I reached Walpole at 17:10 and had decided if I couldn't get the cruise control working here I was going to turn around and catch a plane and hire a car for the weekend instead! I went across the road to get a drink and snack:
After a bit of scratching the head, it finally hit me.
I had both tyres changed on Saturday and had not had a chance to test the cruise control again. I crawled under the back of the bike to find a wire hanging loose with a mangled connector. Some tricky use of a pair of long nose pliers and I managed to get the connector resembling its original shape and fingers crossed all was good. Repacked the bike and off again, no camera, but C.B. was in receive only mode again, music was good at last and yes I had my cruise control working. My IBA ride was back on!!!
I got to Albany after 541K's and 7 hours, not a good start to the ride! Refueled again and this is why the rest of the timelapse looks quite ordinary, I tried to clean the housing but obviously not very well!
The night bit of the timelapse is my uneventful run from Albany to Jerramungup for another topup of fuel as the next available was in Esperence. I left Jerramungup at 21:00 for Esperence, still feeling good and my electronics were still playing games with me, but I had GPS and Cruise so I figured I could live without the rest if I had to. After passing thru Ravensthorpe in good time and crunching some numbers in my head I figured I could bypass Esperence and make it to Norseman on 1 tank. Got there with the reserve light shining brightly in my face. I had a good run again with no wildlife trying to kill me and arrived in Norseman at 01:50. By this time I had been going for nearly 14 hours and only had 1187K covered, not good. I had a bit of a break ( coffee and half a stale sandwich ) and left Norseman at 02:20, next stop, Caiguna.
Once again an uneventful run to Caiguna, except I could see lots of cloud and I thought a good sunrise photo by the sign at the beginning of THE straight would be on. So I had a 20 min power nap at the IBA Motel to find the sunrise to be a non event! So I fired up the bike and got to Caiguna for a quick refuel and off again.
The run to Border village ( the third and final section in the timelapse ) looked like I was going to have an interesting run with the weather. I had my clear visor on all the way with no sunnies either, but again a couple of spits of rain and that was it. Arrived at Border Village at 10:00, filled bike with gogo juice and grabbed a quick drink and snack and left at 10:30. ( The people there just would not stop talking! ) Made it to Penong in good time and filled the bike again and off to Ceduna and maybe a motel for a couple of hours. I got to Ceduna at 15:35 it was still daylight and I was still feeling good. I stuffed as much fuel as I could get into the bike and left for Port Augusta. Again an uneventful run to Port Augaust, but for last hour I started to feel a bit tired, so I figured I would find an open motel and crash for a couple of hours. I refuelled and asked the servo attendants if they knew of a motel that was open, and they laughed. I had forgotten about the time difference, my watch said it was only 20:45, but here in South Oz it was 23:15!! By this time a gale type wind was coming in straight off the Antarctic and I was really starting to feel tired, so off I went to find my next IBA Motel and here it is in all its glory:
After a couple of hours of small power naps, a truck rolled in with the same idea as me. But he had a very noisy load in the back, so I remounted and carried on 'til I found another. This one was almost out of the wind and in complete darkness. An hour later I woke up feeling much better and carried on. By this time my watch was showing 02:00 and I only had about 350k to go and 10 hours to do it in, looking good, so I stopped at the BP in Port Wakefield to have a good breakfast. After the good feed and the endless explanations of what I was up to, I moseyed on towards Adelaide. Let the fun begin!
Mrs Garmin decided that the data I uploaded from my computer wasn't good enough, so she took me for a tour of the city!!!!! After about 40min I finaly saw the sign I was looking for: to Victor Harbor. Another good bit for riding and I pulled into the BP at Victor Harbor and refuelled for the last time on this run. The time stamp on the docket: 08:41 (06:11 W.A. time ) exactly 42 hours since I left Perth!
Went down the road to find Middleton, but found the local bakery first. A couple of coffees and a pie later I rang the B&B I was booked into. Got my room early and crashed for a little while before meeting up with a couple of the other early arrivals.
OK, the stats:
Time Taken:- 42 Hours 00 Mins
GPS Distance:- 3243.6 Km's
Odometer Distance:- 3302 Km's
Fuel Used:- 167Ltrs
Cost:- Who knows, Who cares!
IBA SS2000 ( mile ) done at last! ( my 3rd attempt! )
Here is the bit of a timelapse I was able to make:
http://s353.photobucket.com/user/Netdummy/media/OzSTOC2013_0_zpsb883acf5.mp4.htmlNow to get all the IBA paperwork in order and get myself certified! ( again ).
til next time......................................................
